1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system. In particular, the present invention relates to a method, apparatus, and computer instructions for providing a consulting assessment environment.
2. Description of Related Art
Consulting activities for business assessments are typically very time consuming, at least in part because they are largely discovery based. A discovery based approach for conducting assessments uses consulting subject matter experts who are specialists in working with a client to understand their business and identify how they can improve it. A prescriptive based approach uses consultants who are experts in best practices and through their experience and knowledge, identify the problems in a business and know the solutions to fix them. The market is now looking at prescriptive approaches based upon best practices. Many of the steps in the activities for consulting assessments are manual, which makes standardization of the consulting process difficult.
In addition, data preparations, such as translating hypotheses into interview questionnaires, conducting interviews, and summarizing interview data, are very labor-intensive and lengthy in duration. Many assessments produce results that summarize the current business state rather than analyzing the data to provide new business insights and recommendations. The lack of standardization results in inconsistent data, which complicates the process of data consolidation (i.e., combining data from various divisions or units in a business for the purpose of summarizing a larger partition of the business).
Tracking results and recommendations is difficult. Many clients are reluctant to engage consultants for assessment projects because of uncertainties regarding the deliverables as well as costs of follow-up assessments to monitor progress. For example, clients will typically engage consultants the first time to perform an assessment, but usually do not want to engage the consultants again for follow-up assessments. Clients often prefer to learn from the assessment process and then have the option of performing the assessment themselves.
Therefore, there is a need for a software tool to standardize and simplify the business assessment process.